I WOULD like to bring to your attention the magnificent work that the rivers Stour and Avon are performing in Dorset and Hampshire.
If it wasn’t for these two rivers working tirelessly night and day to move gigantic quantities of rainfall, then eastern Dorset and western Hampshire would be non-existent and completely obliterated.
The capacity of these rivers in dealing with the severe rainfall exceeds anything that man will ever be able to provide.
The lower Stour and Avon are each discharging at a rate of eight million tonnes of water per 24 hours and this is with a water level that has now fallen a metre.
At the height of the recent rainfall both rivers together were discharging 20,000,000 tonnes per 24 hours.
If we look at the total rainfall that has fallen on each catchment area (the area the river drains), within the last 90 days the River Stour with a catchment area of 1,700 km² has received just over 1,000 million tonnes of rain.
The River Avon covers an area of 1,750 km² and within the last 90 days has had to deal with 1.1 thousand million tonnes of rain.
Thus these two great rivers of the region in the last 90 days have discharged nearly two thousand million tonnes of rainwater into the sea.
It is not the river’s fault if it cannot deal with these immense quantities of water without breaking its banks. The floodplains play an essential part in mother nature.
Although both rivers broke their banks, nonetheless at the same time they did a magnificent job in moving unbelievable quantities of water off the land and safeguarding the economy and environment of this region of Dorset and Hampshire.
ROBERT WILSON,
Ravine Road,
Bournemouth
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